


When the Truth Hurts (I'll Be There)

by singingdevil



Series: YakuLev Week 2016 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Hospitals, M/M, Major Character Injury, Traffic Accidents, YakuLev Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingdevil/pseuds/singingdevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is one of the times Lev finds it difficult to be an adult."</p>
<p>YakuLev week 2016 day 2, words "paralysis" and "futurefic". This was painful to write.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Truth Hurts (I'll Be There)

**Author's Note:**

> I have never been so sorry for anything I've ever written.

Lev's phone is buzzing in his hand. He doesn't pay attention to it – he knows it's Kuroo, anyway, and he doesn't want to listen to his former captain's frantic voice asking him details he doesn't know yet. He's been in Tokyo for an hour, tops, after taking an earlier flight back to Japan from Russia.

Apparently, Yaku has been in the hospital for two days now, and he's currently in his fifth surgery. A train wreck, they said. Spinal injury, they said. The hospital has dozens of patients in the same shape as Yaku, many in worse and even more in better, and the hallways are incredibly crowded. Lev has seen photos of disaster sites on papers, but those were just photos - now he's sitting in the hospital, where they bring people to save them and not kill them, and there are crying people everywhere. He sees mothers, fathers, sisters, wives, boyfriends, brothers, grandparents, husbands... and hears their cries, their worries. There are children, too. Across the room, there's a young boy, not possibly a day older than fourteen, trying to comfort a girl who is obviously his little sister. She's crying for her mother. The boy is holding back tears.

This is one of the times Lev finds it difficult to be an adult. The rest of his family is still in Russia and Yaku is in _surgery_ and he kind of maybe wants a hug. Maybe he'll call Kuroo later. He doesn't know. His head is a mess.

It takes hours until a young nurse comes to him. He isn't much older than Lev, but the lines on his face tell of work work work and there's an exhausted look in his eyes. He's probably seen a lot of people die in the past two days. He tells Lev that Yaku's family refused to come – Lev isn't surprised, but he's _mad_ – tells Lev that Yaku is finally out of surgery (again) and introduces him to paperwork. After that he'll be able to see Yaku. Hopefully. If his condition doesn't crash.

It doesn't, and although Yaku is asleep and bruised and bandaged and hooked up to monitors and IVs, Lev has never felt so relieved. Never, not ever, not even when he'd confessed to Yaku and Yaku had returned his feelings. He'd been seventeen, then.

Now he’s twenty-four, and the relief crashing over him at the sight of his precious Yaku-san threatens to send him on his knees. The drive to the airport in Moscow, the flight back to Tokyo, the drive to the hospital, the hours of waiting – none of those matter now. All the worry he’s been choking on since _T_ _he Call_ dissipates into thin air because Yaku is alive and breathing and _alive_. Not okay, not yet, but Lev can take that. He can take Yaku being Not Okay for this one moment.

* * *

Lev visits every day. Yaku isn’t awake, not yet – they’re keeping him under for now, but he has no more surgeries scheduled. That’s good, Lev supposes. No more surgeries means nothing more to fix, right? So Yaku is going to be fine (though the “spinal injury” comment on the day he came back to Tokyo still worries him a little).

Lev isn’t there when Yaku finally wakes up – it’s late evening and Lev’s been kicked out already. The nurses are fussing over him in seconds, but he’s so out of it he barely even notices. He’s been pumped so full of drugs his head feels like it’s filled with cotton.

The next day, when Lev comes over, Yaku stirs awake and Lev starts crying. Yaku is tired and a little grumpy, but he’s coherent now, and he awkwardly tries to comfort Lev with needles sticking out of his arms and sensors all over his body. It’s difficult, and he’s missed Lev and he wants _more_ , more physical contact, more _Lev_ to make him forget the pain and the numbness and the beeping monitors.

When Lev finally calms down, he kisses Yaku. He kisses him gently, carefully, but pours in all the hours of waiting and worrying and the sense of relief. There’s love, there’s bucketloads of love and they’re both gasping for breath when Lev pulls away.

Lev starts asking questions – how is he feeling, is he hurting, does he know how long he’ll be here, how’s the food. Yaku goes quiet and his face falls, and Lev stutters, stops talking in the middle of the word.

“W-what’s wrong?” he asks, stammering over the words. Yaku sighs, and Lev feels something cold grip his heart.

“Lev, I... I gotta tell you something.” Yaku isn’t looking at him, but his hand twitches a little in a way that says _please take my hand_ , so Lev reaches for the delicate, pale fingers nearly lost in the white sheets. His heart is sprinting down a hill in his throat, because this is very unlike Yaku. Yaku talks like that when there’s something seriously wrong, when there’s something he’s afraid to tell Lev, and hearing Yaku talk like that makes all of Lev’s protective instincts surge up and into action.

Lev nods and gives Yaku’s hand the smallest of squeezes. He doesn’t dare to speak, but he needs Yaku to continue. Yaku swallows and squeezes back.

“I can’t feel my legs.” Yaku’s eyes slide shut as Lev’s widen in shock. “I can’t feel anything below my hips.”

And Yaku cries. Lev has witnessed his boyfriend crying very few times, so he doesn’t really know how to react to this. But he believes it’s going to be okay. He just has to make Yaku believe it too. So he wraps his arms around Yaku in the gentlest of hugs, kisses his forehead and cheeks and eyelids, kisses the tears away until there are no more.

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I hope I made you cry though.


End file.
